Round balers commonly have either a fixed or an expandable bale forming chamber between opposing vertical sidewalls. The chamber in many instances is defined by a floor and a transverse wall which comprises a continuous apron and/or a plurality of rolls. Frequently the apron consists of an array of side-by-side belts trained around a series of rollers extending between the sidewalls and the floor consists of a roller or a continuous belt. During field operation, crop material such as hay is picked up from the ground and fed into the expandable chamber. The volume of crop material increases continuously in the chamber to form a cylindrical package which is then wrapped to form a completed bale which is subsequently ejected onto the ground.
Balers of the type mentioned above employ various means for wrapping the package of crop material formed in the chamber. Prior art apparatus commonly utilize either twine or net to secure the package into a bale. Plastic sheet material has also been used.
Exemplary of known apparatus in which net wrapping is employed is the round baler shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,768,431, issued Sep. 6, 1988 in the name of John Merritt, et al. Typical prior art apparatus in which twine wrapping is utilized is illustrated by U.S. Pat. No. 4,167,844, issued Sep. 18, 1989 in the name of John H. Freimuth, et al, and a prior art round baler using plastic as the wrapping medium is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,366,665, issued Jan. 4, 1983 in the name of Robert M. VanGinhoven, et al.
In patent application Ser. No. 08/212,532, filed in the name of a common assignee on 14 Mar. 1994, (now U.S. Pat. No. 5,365,836) tape wrapping apparatus is disclosed in which self adhesive tape is dispensed along a plurality of side-by-side paths around a cylindrical package of hay to form a round bale. As in the net and plastic wrap systems, the number of rotations of the completed bale required for wrapping with tape is significantly less than the number used for twine wrapping.